NWITweetup Holds Lunch & Learn Event, Begins New NWISM Initiative

The NWITweetup group held their first Lunch & Learn event, sponsored by Certified Home Inspections, on October 26, 2011. The luncheon directed the attention of small business owners to social media.

This is the first in a series of business luncheons to announce the building of an online resource tool,” said Nat Finn, one of the creators of the NWITweetup. "This online resource tool is going to be designed to help small businesses use social media to help their business grow."

Finn stated, “There isn’t one outlet or a 24-7 resource solely for businesses in the area, and we want to remedy that. We’ve (NWITweetup) always talked about how to widen out from a more social network to a business network. This is a real grass roots effort to branch off.

Partnering in the effort was Golden Technologies, Gosser Corporate Sales Inc., Cartronix, GetUnoticed.com, Innovative Cleaning, and Certified Home Inspections, the luncheon’s sponsor.

Representing Golden Technologies was Steve Dalton. Dalton has been involved with the NWITweetup group since the beginning. He stated, “I encourage any use of social media because it is a less expensive way of marketing. Why not use any method in social media in a time when businesses are strapped for cash?

Cartronix has also been using social media very regularly for its business. Eric Carter, owner of Cartronix, said, “Using Facebook and Twitter has been a success for my business. Almost all of our advertising has been with social media and our sales keep growing.”

Rick Gosser, of Gosser Corporate Sales Inc., is now exclusively using social media for their business. Gosser explained, “My business has tripled since using social media. I don’t do yellow page ads, no print advertising, and our business has still tripled. We are getting business all over the country like California and New York, and all over the world. I have a client in London, England and that client found us on Facebook.

In 2008, Steve Dalton, Nat Finn, Eric Carter, and Dave Woodson started doing the Tweetups to build a community. It has been a progression. The idea was always about building a community, to have one center where people can meet together for social purposes. The group is evolving more for business networking, where people can learn to blog, do marketing, use social media, and network.

The group just started a new website, NWISM.com, for Northwest Indiana Social Media. “We want to be a resource, to be ahead of the curve,” Finn explained. “We are a community that wants to put in the effort and grow together. We are teaching small business owners to fish. We don’t want to just hand them fish anymore.

Finn went on to explain the NWISM.com grand plan in phases:

Phase 1: The first three months will give business owners the “How To’s”, such as “How to blog”, "How to use social media”, and “How to use an iPhone application for Facebook or Twitter”.

Phase 2: Keep people engaged with articles like, “What has made your business successful?” Also, the group will be leading discussions on different topics that affect business owners. The site will also likely have a business calendar, so business owners can keep current on the latest business networking events.

Nat Finn closed by saying, “We are simple craftsmen, simple businessmen, simple capitalists and we want to be better craftsmen.”